ya I'll probably look at a viper in the near future, for some npc interdicting. Right now tho just getting in some practice, the eagle is fun and 37k to rebuy so pretty cheap. As for jump range it's not really necessary, finding I can get away on speed most times, chaff/turn/boost/silent run ( shields are gone at this point usually ), it's when someones packing seeker missiles that I get vaporised.... or a python or something large catches me unawares lol, been playing in high conflict zone. Usually get 5 or so kills, sometimes more, then I split for repairs/reload + combat bond claim. But sometimes I just get ganged right off the bat! definitely having fun! Thanks all for the advice once again, I'm having a lot more success with the lighter + faster build even though its waaaaay more fragile.

Thanks for the tip on Coriolis, exactly what I was looking for.
I think that the changes I made are at least an improvement. I'll look into the dirty thrusters next, need to get more materials and Im off to work for a couple weeks so it will have to wait.

Remember the special 2A and 3A Enhanced Performance Thrusters you can get at Farseer/Palin/Martuuk greatly benefit from the lowered mass. With DD5 drag drives your current build would boost at 700m/s with full pips to engines. And that's not the limit either, a stripped down Imperial Eagle tops out at 932 m/s according to coriolis...

Remember the special 2A and 3A Enhanced Performance Thrusters you can get at Farseer/Palin/Martuuk greatly benefit from the lowered mass. With DD5 drag drives your current build would boost at 700m/s with full pips to engines. And that's not the limit either, a stripped down Imperial Eagle tops out at 932 m/s according to coriolis...

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It's true that you can get them for the eagle. But I wouldn't put a combat beginner into an eagle with enhanced performance thrusters. The first reason is that these engines are more mass sensitive than normal engines. That's fine if you know very well what you're doing, but I'd advise any beginner to do some experimentation himself. Only that way you get a feeling for things. And the enhanced performance thrusters can turn experimentation into a mess.
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The other reason why I don't advertise them for beginners: an experienced player can turn them into a big advantage, additional speed allows you to control a fight. But a beginner doesn't have the experience yet to make good use of this speed. At the same time, the higher speed profile pushes up the blue zone. The beginner thus very likely overshoots the target or sacrifices speed and agility, ending up in an unfavourable situation.
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Once you have some combat experience, you can avoid those pitfalls and play to the engines strength.But I wouldn't advise them to somebody completely new to combat.
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but I can see a point if you wanted to dance around at range chipping away using your size and speed.

this was a thing in the early days, dunno how accurate turrets in "fire at will" are now, but this did work back then, at least in eagle vs eagle. eagle has very little firepower anyway, but can dance circles around any target, including another eagle if you can ignore firing position for the most part. the top hardpoint is ideally placed for that, so you could keep a beam on it constantly without being hit, and ocassionally give a volley with your lower hardpoints (typically plasmas or dumbfires).

this was a thing in the early days, dunno how accurate turrets in "fire at will" are now, but this did work back then, at least in eagle vs eagle. eagle has very little firepower anyway, but can dance circles around any target, including another eagle if you can ignore firing position for the most part. the top hardpoint is ideally placed for that, so you could keep a beam on it constantly without being hit, and ocassionally give a volley with your lower hardpoints (typically plasmas or dumbfires).

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It's true for "back then". Unfortunately this method suffered a lot from changes.
- Since then the AI has actually been upgraded several times. While experienced players still find it to be predictable, it still has improved a lot. NPCs have learned to better handle the reverski and to shoot at longer distance.
- Shield Cell Batteries were implemented. While a small beam laser can slowly wear down shields, SCBs can refill them again. You can still drain a targets SCBs, they will run out, but it really takes a long time now.
- Even mid-ranked NPCs have some engineering by now. Engineered weapons are uncommon and special effects are rare and only fielded by high-ranked NPCs, but even mid-ranked NPCs have some survivability engineering on their ships. It's not on par what players field, it's not even close to the upgrade in firepower for a fully engineered players ship, but it still again increases their durability and thus the time it takes to destroy them. Against a single beam turret really suffers from that.
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Mind you, I haven't tried anything like that since ages, and neither has anybody I'd be aware of. But all the changes and the math behind them tells me that the small beam laser and just occasionally hitting a target with other weapons results in a very long fight by now. It probably works against other small targets, but anything bigger than that will be a pain.
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Any PP malfunction results in the whole ship turning off momentarily, and a destroyed PP results in the whole ship shutting down until modules are disabled, power priorities are corrected, or the ship is rebooted.

You have 40% of your nominal power available during a standard malfunction, 20% available during the malfunction that occurs when the PP integrity reaches 0, and 50% available after a PP with zero integrity stabilizes.

The enhanced drives greatly limit options without increasing the power output of the plant. At best you can keep the FSD and a few other modules from turning off during a malfunction, while you wait for it to pass so your thrusters come back on line (thrusters have no boot time).